Lady Love. Diana Palmer

of hot chocolate. Maybe a warm drink would help her to sleep.

      Out in the hallway, it was pitch black. It must be close to midnight, Merlyn thought. The rest of the household was asleep. The darkness was sporadically lit by flashes of lightning from the storm. Getting her bearings during one of the lightning bursts, she hurried down the hall, turned the corner and ran headlong into a formidable barrier.

       Chapter Two

      Merlyn hated him immediately. Of course, he couldn’t have known that she’d be standing in the middle of the hall in the dark at twelve o’clock at night. On the other hand, she hadn’t expected him to blow in out of a horrible thunderstorm and knock her down onto the thick pile carpet.

      “Of all the…” came a voice as black and deep as thunder rumbling. “Who the hell are you?”

      She threw back her long black hair. The next lightning flash caught her glaring into a face that would have gone well with a copy of Jane Eyre and antique furniture.

      He was big. Bigger than any man she’d ever met face to face. Tall, built like a wrestler. Hands like hams, holding a black attaché case and an umbrella. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his hair was thick and black and bushy and needed trimming. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit, and the eyes she couldn’t quite see under his heavy eyebrows seemed to throw off sparks.

      “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” she shot back, too shaken to get up. “You were moving like a freight train! Come to think of it,” she added darkly, “you look a little like one.”

      “Get up from there.”

      “Yes, sir!” she said smartly, glaring at him as she pulled herself to her feet. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, so she pulled the thin blue robe closer around her slender, half-clad body. Her feet were bare; she hadn’t thought about slippers. She hadn’t even brought any, come to think of it.

      “Well?” he growled.

      “That,” she said with a sweet smile, “is a deep subject. And you look like a man with a shallow mind. Were you invited, or are you a cat burglar?” She looked him up and down. He was doing a great impression of a man about to explode. “Make that an elephant burglar. Boy, I’d love to see you try to sneak up on somebody.”

      Her grin didn’t seem to impress him much. He slammed the attaché case to the floor. “Who the hell are you?”

      “Miss Jane Eyre, sir,” she said, making him a sweeping curtsy. “I’ve come to tutor the youngster and provide romantic interest for you.”

      “Oh, my God, I don’t believe this,” he muttered, running a hand over his unshaven face. “Six hours on airplanes, two waiting in baggage claim…Lady, unless you want to spend what’s left of the night in the nearest police station, you’d damned well better come up with some quick answers.”

      “There’s a phone in the living room,” she suggested. “I’ll look up the number for you.”

      He moved forward, and she moved backward. “Now, now,” she cautioned, stumbling. “Temper, temper. You’ll hurt yourself.”

      “Not damned likely,” he said darkly, and kept coming.

      “Mrs. Thorpe!” Merlyn screamed, and went tearing off down the hall toward that lady’s room.

      “What?” Lila appeared in her doorway, looking disheveled and drowsy. She gaped at Merlyn cowering against the wall, and then at the big, angry man almost on her.

      “Cameron!” she exclaimed, a smile appearing on her lined face. “Well, what an unexpected delight on a horrible evening like this. Come here and let me look at you, dear!

      “I see you’ve already met Merlyn Forrest,” she continued, smiling at the younger woman pressed against the wall. “Merlyn, this is my son, Cameron.”

      “Your son?” Merlyn blinked. “This is your son?” She stared at the man, who was easily twice his mother’s weight and the exact opposite of her fair coloring.

      “Who is she?” Cameron Thorpe asked coldly.

      “Now, dear…” his mother began.

      “Who?”

      “Merlyn Forrest,” Lila said, exasperated. “Don’t you remember that I was looking for someone to help me do some research on my new book?”

      He stared at Merlyn as if he couldn’t imagine that she had enough brains to be able to read.

      “How did you find her?” he asked curtly.

      “In the Yellow Pages,” Merlyn murmured, “under ‘brilliant research associates.”’

      He gave her a hard look. “Mother?” he persisted.

      Lila sighed. “A friend of yours, in fact, that Jack Thomas. He knew someone who knew someone.…”

      “Does she have credentials?” he asked with a suspicious glance at Merlyn.

      “I have a B.A. in history,” Merlyn said sweetly. “And pretending hostility toward me will not work, sir. You and I were obviously meant for each other—you just won’t admit it.” She batted her long eyelashes demurely. “It was like lightning striking, when our eyes met.…”

      He muttered something she was glad she didn’t really hear, and went back to pick up his umbrella and attaché case.

      Lila was trying not to smile. “Cameron, don’t you dare try to scare off my new assistant,” she said after a minute. “I can’t do this book alone, and I have to have Merlyn for the next month at least.”

      “A month?” He looked hunted.

      “She’ll be company for Amanda and me,” Lila said shortly. “Amanda likes her.”

      So this was the little girl’s father, Merlyn thought. Cameron the Cold Heart. He did fit the image of a businessman who was all business all the time. No wonder the little girl looked so repressed. She didn’t have a chance with a father like that. She studied Cameron Thorpe quietly and wondered how he’d look in red polka-dotted boxer shorts. She had to bite her lip hard to keep from bursting out laughing.

      “I thought children were supposed to be perceptive,” he muttered.

      Merlyn gave him the once-over and tugged her blue robe closer. “I’m so glad you like me, Mr. Thorpe,” she sighed theatrically. She grinned. “I like you, too. Dark, somber men really turn me on.”

      Once again, he looked as though he might explode. His mother, kind soul, moved quickly in front of Merlyn.

      “Now, dear,” she told Cameron gently, “it’s late and you must be tired. Why don’t you get some rest? Can you stay the entire weekend?”

      “Yes,” he said. “And if you could keep Jane Eyre here out of sight while my guests are in residence…?”

      “Guests?” Lila asked.

      “Charlotte and Delle Radner,” he said. “They’re coming up from Atlanta tomorrow.”

      Lila sighed. “Oh.” She didn’t look enthusiastic. “Of course, your friends are welcome.”

      “You’ll get used to them,” he promised her with a slight softening.

      “I suppose I’ll have to,” came the resigned reply.

      “I suppose one of them is your girlfriend,” Merlyn said, letting her full lips pout at him. “Well, I want you to know that my heart is broken, just broken. And I did love you at first sight…uh, what was your name again?”

      He started to speak, then sliced the air with that big hand, turned on his heel and stomped off down the hall with steps